countdown

10 more days!

1 more year . . . 2-2&1/2 more years . . . 3-4 more years . . .

Countdowns aren't as exciting when I realize all the other things I could be counting down toward.

Translation - Time . . . until I'm done with this semester . . . until I'm done with classes . . . until I earn my doctorate . . . until I become licensed . . . unless I move out of the country or get knocked up before any of those things happen, which under the right circumstances, neither would be bad at all.

Perhaps it's crude, and I wouldn't use the term to refer to my friends' pregnancies, but if I ever get pregnant, I will refer to myself as knocked up. I love the phrase because it usually refers to an unplanned pregnancy, and to a certain extent, I believe that all pregnancies and most of life's other events are unplanned. Even when planning a pregnancy, there's no guarantee that a couple will conceive exactly when they want to. Without getting into too much of a soapbox, I think birth control methods give us the illusion that we can control our life events completely around our plans.

Screw my plans. I put too much stock and security in them. I'll make my plans and carry some of them out, but I still want to remain completely open to getting knocked up. I want to be open to whatever God brings into my life without my planning, be it a new opportunity, job, career, ministry, relationship, whatever those things are that could tear into my life, assaulting my carefully made plans in such a way that my life course is so radically different than what I anticipated, but better, stronger, more rewarding than anything my boring head could have dreamed up.

So go ahead, knock me up! I'll probably start kicking and screaming and try to run in the other direction when you do, but maybe I'll remember writing this post and it will help me to surrender.

Sigh. 10 more days!